Ladies 1s West Indoor Tournament Report
20 December 2008
The Cheltenham ladies indoor squad had a very successful day down in Exeter for the regional indoor competition, after winning their practise tournament the weekend before. Cheltenham were drawn in a pool with Bath Buccs, West Wilts, Westbury and Ashmore, with the winners and runners up from this pool playing in the semi finals and possibly the finals against the Second pool of teams.
Cheltenham's first match was against Bath Buccs who Cheltenham had played in the warm-up tournament and beaten after some very hard play. Cheltenham stormed ahead after a very quick first goal from Rachel Chicken, who put it right in the right corner during a short corner. This spurred the team on and as new legs came on the pitch to give others a rest, another goal was scored by Gayle Ashby. In the rare attacks that Bath had, Cheltenham's defenders had no problem in taking the ball back off them, with right defender Daisy Noble stopping every ball coming down the right board and annoying their attack. A third goal was scored during open play, again by Ashby, which meant the final score was Cheltenham 3 Bath 0.
Cheltenham's second match was against West Wilts, and yet again they improved on their last performance getting loads of short corners. 2 of these where put away by Ashby up front, who fired one right and the other one left leaving the defenders confused. It wasn't just the short corners that where capable of getting Cheltenham goals either, with some strong mid and defensive step ups, forward Nat Lewis was able to score Cheltenham's third goal. Meaning the overall score was Cheltenham 3, West Wilts 0.
In Cheltenham's third match they were against Westbury. The girls continued their winning streak, with their magic number of 3. Winning 3-0 with Kim Cook playing a fantastic attacking role to take two of Cheltenham's goals, with a third from a Chicken short corner, which was tapped in by Frankie Mayes. The girls played really well, and definately deserved to win.
Cheltenham's fourth and final pool game was against Ashmore - after having an unbeaten day so far the girls were determined to win this one as well. Ashby opened the scoring during open play, which put Ashmore on the back foot. After more amazing open play, Lewis was able to score with a brilliant cross from Chicken. The goals seemed to give Cheltenham confidence and the third goal came from a deflection off Ashby's stick, the score was Cheltenham 3, Ashmore 0. This meant that Cheltenham was the winner of its pool and therefore played the runners up in the opposite pool of teams.
In the semi finals Cheltenham were drawn against a determined Teignmouth side. Cheltenham upped their game with both Chicken and Cook scoring but unfortunately the team conceded two goals, the final score being 2-2. After deliberation between umpires, coaches and officials it was decided the match would go to sudden death penalties. Teignmouth went first but a magnificent save by Cheltenham goalie Charlotte Collins prevented them from scoring. From the three Cheltenham penalty-taking volunteers - Chicken, Cook and Noble - Chicken was the first to shoot and scored an impressive flick into the top left corner of the Teignmouth net, meaning Cheltenham went through to the final 3-2.
The final match was against a notoriously tough Army team. Unfortunately the Army proved to be too strong and although Cheltenham put up a good fight they lost 4-0. As runners up, Cheltenham now go through to represent the West in the National Plate competition to be held in Wolverhampton the weekend of 17-18th of January.
Goal Scorers: Rachel Chicken (4), Gayle Ashby (5), Nat Lewis (2), Kim Cook (3), Frankie Mayes (1)
Player of the Match: Gayle Ashby
